


Meet Brooklyn

by EveryDayBella



Series: More Than Just Saving the World [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adopting, Avengers as family, F/M, Hdyra, Kid Fic, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Super Soldiers, Violence against kids, but something you should be aware of, not graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8001541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryDayBella/pseuds/EveryDayBella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be easy. Go in. Take down Hydra. Secure and dismantle the facility. Go home. Rinse, repeat. All in a days work for an Avenger. And then, they find a baby in the bowels of the lab one day. And then, everything gets much more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Supersoldiers

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to go up two weeks ago. I'm so sorry. Busy, busy, busy. Anyway welcome to the next part of the series! So glad you're here and hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

**Supersoldiers**

 

When taking out Hydra bases, the Avengers always let Bucky call the shots. He knew more about the inner workings of the Nazi secret order than any of them. Besides which, it’s his revenge. Steve is always right beside him in case the Winter Soldier stumbled upon a trigger, and Bucky is a brilliant tactician. Tony often joked that they should take Steve off leadership duties and replace him with Bucky. It’s usually enough to get a rise out of Steve.

 

“Tony? Thor? Are you in position yet?” Bucky hisses softly into the communicator as he can. He nervously rubs his thumb along the edge of his rifle and avoids Steve’s hard blue gaze. 

 

“Bucky, what wrong?” Steve asks for the thousandth time.

 

“Nothing.” Bucky growls. “Clint, you see anything from there?”

 

“There’s three of them on the roof. Give me the word and I can take ‘em out.”

 

“Standby.”

 

“Bucky.”

 

“Steve, can you stop?”

 

“No. You’re nervous about something. We’re standing outside a Hydra warehouse and that worries me. Spill.” Steve uses that I’m-Captain-America-and-you-better-listen-to-me-soldier voice of his. He doesn’t use it often on Bucky and that makes the ex-assassin pay attention.

 

“There’s something not right here, Steve.” Bucky admits with a sigh. The tension he’s been holding on his shoulders loosens after admitting what he’d been hiding for an hour now. “This is supposed to be a low level base, right? It a warehouse, not a lab. It’s just storage. There shouldn’t even be any scientists here. So, why are there three guards on the roof and all the automated perimeter defenses?” 

 

“It’s too much.” Steve agrees, and Bucky takes a deep breath for the first time since they’d arrived.

 

“Right. So, what’s in there that we don’t know about?”

 

“I don’t know.” Steve shrugs his broad shoulders and the uncertainty relieves Bucky. They can figure this thing out together like they’ve worked through everything else. “Just keep your eyes open. We’ll work out what it is when we get in there.”

 

Bucky lets Steve’s absolute confidence in his abilities surge through him, adding power to his muscles that has nothing to do with physical strength. “Avengers, get ready to move. On my mark. One. Two.”

 

Bucky and Steve share a quick, heated glance before Steve nods once. “Three.”

 

The word has barely left Bucky’s mouth before Steve is putting his boot through the door in front of them. Bucky takes out the other with his bionic arm and raises his rifle in the same second. After that, it's a blur of battle, him and Steve side by side, taking out Hydra together just like they alway have. At some point, Bucky abandons the rifle and switches to a knife as the hallways fill up with weak goons and the Widow joins them. He doesn’t want to risk hitting one of his friends.

 

After years of living and fighting together, the Avengers are a well oiled team. Within fifteen minutes, they have most of the warehouse cleared. The left wing is still mostly unexplored, but it’s not large. Bucky sends Steve to help the others start to sort through the mess of files and personel they’ve captured while he starts down the last hallway. He’s not terribly surprised when Natasha appears behind his right shoulder. 

 

“Something isn’t right.”

 

“I know. That’s why I sent Steve back with the others. Didn’t want him to get caught up in whatever hornets nest we’re about to kick over.”

 

“Someone has to go home?” 

 

Bucky nods, setting his lips into a thin firm line and ignoring the pang in his heart that came when he thinks of the deal he and Steve made. “Something like that. You take the right, I’ll take the left?”

 

The Winter Soldier and the Black Widow creep silently down the corridor lined with doors. The more empty rooms they open, the more worried they both got. They were both trained to trust their instincts, and their instincts are telling them that there’s something they’re missing and it could put the people they love at risk. 

 

It’s the last door on Bucky’s side and as he carefully swings the door open, he knows he’s found something. It opens into a dark staircase that leads underground. Evil lair one-oh-one. Bucky fights down a shiver of discomfort and instability at cramped places. He’s Bucky Barnes, The Winter Soldier reformed, member of the Avengers and husband of Captain America. Someone down here could be hurt and he can’t let that slide. 

 

He pulls a pistol from his belt as he slowly and silently creeps down the steps, heart pounding tightly in his chest. He’s grateful for his enhanced senses that allow him to see where he’s putting his feet in pitch dark. 

 

He almost calls for backup, but he also knows Natasha will follow him down once she’s done with her side. As far as back up goes, he couldn’t ask for better.

 

The staircase ends as abruptly as it began in yet another dark, dank hallway. Bucky has to fight the urge to snort. Super villains were such a bore sometimes. At least this hallway only had one door at the far end and there was no sign of any surveillance. It doesn’t make Bucky feel any better, but at least no one is watching him. It could be worse.

 

He grips the metal handle of the door in his hand, gun in the other. He swings the door open wide, gun coming down, ready to fire in a split second. He expects the room to be full of techs,  maybe scientists, or one of Hydra’s many heads, but the room is empty of any life. All the signs of life are there. A bank of computers on the far wall, medical equipment on the one opposite. There’s a tube standing on four legs like a table in the middle of the room surrounded by an IV lines. The hollow beeping of a slow heart monitor fills his ears and something like terror seeps through his veins. The tube is too small to hold a person. At least, not a full sized person.

 

Bucky moves forward as fast as he feels he can, afraid to trigger a booby trap, but also equally as worried about the weak heartbeat that fills the room and who it might belong to. His stomach drops when he peers over the edge for the first time and sees a baby. A tiny, unconscious, dirty baby. It can’t be more than a week a old if the size is anything to go by, he guesses. He counts seven leads in it’s small arms, pumping god knows what into the fragile body. A boiling rage sets off in him because all he can think of is Misha, safely tucked up into bed at home. If anything ever happened to him he would let the world burn. He purposely doesn’t think about himself being the one Hydra experimented on. 

 

Bucky reaches forward and brushes his real fingers against the thin skin of its face and gasps in shock. It's cold. He kicks into overdrive and starts deciding what to do. 

 

There’s on thing he knows, he’s not letting this one die. Hydra won’t take this life. 

 

“Steve, I need you down here.” Bucky orders, carefully extracting the first needle from a vein to thin to hold it.

 

“I’m on my way.” It doesn’t take genius to hear the worry in Steve’s voice. “It everything okay?”

 

“Just get down here.” Bucky’s not sure he’s containing the rage and it comes out in his voice. “You too, Dr. Banner.”

 

He’s so engrossed with trying to free the little thing that he misses Natasha coming up beside him until she gasps in shock. “What were they doing to it?”

 

“I don’t know.” Bucky grunts freeing the last lead and tossing it away. “I’m not even sure how it's alive. It’s too cold and so small. What would Hydra even want with a baby? How are they going to take over the world with a baby?”

 

“Don’t think about that right now.” Natasha urges, moving with an easy grace to the bank of computers ready to dig through for the information they need. “You need to try to wake her up.”

 

Bucky isn’t sure he wants to pick her up, but he does. She’s so small that she fits right into the palm of his hand and only weighs a couple of pounds. Bucky is still certain that neither Misha or Angie had never been this still, this silent, or this small. He doesn’t breath as he pulls the little thing into the crook of his real arm and wishes he was wearing something other than the tac armour, and hating Hydra with a vengeance even he didn’t think was possible. 

 

How did you hurt something as small and fragile as this? What kind of mind even thought that was exceptable?

 

“Wake up.” Bucky urges softly, using the same gentle, urging voice he uses on Misha after nightmares. “Wake up little one. It’s alright. You’re safe, little принцесса. Just wake up for me, please.”

 

Bucky doesn’t realize it when he slips into full Russain, trying to urge the little girl in his arms to wake up. He would feel better if she would cry. Babies are supposed to cry. This stillness isn’t normal. He rocks from foot to foot, bounces on his heels, any movement that he can think of to startle the baby into consciousness. Desperation is beginning to creep into his thoughts when finally there’s a whimper and a full blown scream. Bucky laughs shakily. “At least she’s got good pipes.”

 

“Bucky, is that a baby?” Bucky breathes out a sigh of relief that Steve is finally walking through the door. 

 

“Yeah. Hydra was experimenting on her.”

 

Bucky watches Steve’s face turns to ice. His eyes narrow down to points and his brow furrows with suppressed rage. “How old?”

 

“Can’t be more than a couple of days. Come here and take off your top.”

 

“Really, here boys?” Natasha draws from the computers. Bucky wants to ask what she’s found, but he’s not sure he’s ready to know. 

 

“Ha. Ha. Steve’s temperature runs higher than a normal humans. He’s a natural incubator and this little one is freezing.” Steve is still fighting with the zippers and buckles of his suit. He finally manages to get an arm free and most of his chest. Bucky eases the baby into that arm and sighs with relief when the she’s cocooned in his chest. Steve cooes to her softly as she quiets unhappily. “She’s probably hungry. God knows when the last time was that she ate.”

 

“I can’t help with that one.” Steve says with a sardonic smile that Bucky wants to punch him for. The little girl whimpers, and Steve turns his attention back to her. Bucky can’t help hovering either. She’s just so tiny and pale, thin skin that is nearly translucent. There’s a fine dusting of blond hair on her head which at least seems to fit the where they’re at. Bucky hasn’t seen her open her eyes yet, which makes him wonder if she even can. Angie had her eyes open from day one, but he doesn’t know if that’s normal or not. It doesn’t help the seed of worry embedded in his heart. 

 

He brushes a finger against her forehead, feeling her temperature. “She’s heating up a little bit. There’s a jacket on the quinjet. I’ll have someone go get it.”

 

“Bucky?” The whirry form of a disheveled Dr. Banner appears at the bottom of the stairwell. Bucky waves him over while he takes in the room with wide eyes. “This looks like a bit of a hell.”

 

“It’s something.” Bucky mutters. “Would you look her over? I know you’re not a pediatrician. but could you check her at least and make sure she’s okay before we get her out of here.”

 

Bruce nods, and Bucky lets him take his place in front of Steve. He’s surprisingly reluctant to drift away from Steve and the girl. The baby has woken up his protective side, and he wants to shield her from everything that might still happen to her. He has a feeling that Steve feels the same way. He forces himself to move to Natasha’s side and check in on the rest of the team. Tony’s still going through the computers in the upstairs command room, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro doing the last checks to make sure the buildings clear, and Thor is dealing with the local authorities. There’s is nothing more intimidating than dealing with a Norse god with biceps the size of your head, who’s carrying a huge hammer. Thor enjoys it too much, so Bucky takes perverse joy in sending the man out against the world. 

 

Bucky leans over Natasha’s shoulder at a decrepit computer. “Whatcha got for me?” 

 

“Nothing yet.” Her eyes never leave the screen as she quickly scrolls through files and spreadsheets. “Did you see what they were pumping into her?”

 

“I did, but nothing was labeled.” Bucky shakes his head. “The bags are still hanging up there. I’ll have someone come down here and bag them up for us and take them to Tony’s lab. I’m sure he can figure it out.”

 

Nat hums noncommittally, still too focused on the computer. Bucky leaves her to it and turns back to Steve and Bruce when his heart lurches into his chest. Steve’s wide eyed, gaping a concerned Bruce. 

 

“What’s wrong?” Bucky demands as he approaches them.

 

“She’s showing signs of gamma radiation and vita-ray poisoning.” Bruce answers, sounding as though he still didn’t quite believe it. 

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Bucky, what do you make with those chemicals?”

 

“Super soldiers.” Natasha answers before Bucky can open his mouth. “They were trying to make super soldiers.”

 

“But she’s a baby,” Bucky argues, his mind refusing to accept the information. “You don’t make a super soldier from a baby.”

 

“No, you grow them.” Natasha’s voice of hard and cruel, a thinly veiled anger buried behind it. “They wanted someone pliable that they could use. What’s more bendable than a child?”

 

“How is that even possible?” Steve pipes in. “I barely survived the process.”

 

“Hate to break it to you, pal. you were barely stronger than a baby, too.”

 

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but before he can the ticking time bomb in the room makes itself known.

 

“They were trying to turn her into a weapon.” The voice Bruce uses isn’t all human. There’s a growl in it that only belongs to the Big Guy. Bruce’s hands are twisted into fists, clenching tight enough to coke a man. There’s a flash of erie green in his eyes and the small room crackles with energy. 

 

In a second, Bucky places himself between Bruce and Steve, who’s hands are still occupied by the baby. He eyes the shield across the room and curses himself for not thinking this through. You didn’t just dump Bruce Banner into violent, closed in situations. Bucky had just put Steve, the baby, and Natasha in danger. Bucky and Natasha eye each other from across the room, planning and counter planning in a single look. The biggest thing was to get Steve and the baby out of the there. That was the priority. 

 

The air around Bruce seems to shimmer as he begins to shift and change. Bucky takes a breath, bracing himself for a hit and a fight.

 

“Hulk.” Steve speaks evenly and calmly, a layer of authority and and command in his voice. He’s not speaking as a friend or a brother in arms. He’s a commander, issuing an order to one of his troops. An order he’s expecting to be followed. “Stand down. We’ll get the sons of bitches. I promise, but you have to stand down. That’s an order.”

 

There’s a tense moment when Bucky and Natasha are still geared for a fight, but then the fight goes out of Bruce, and he slumps into his own body. 

 

If Bucky had the time to be proud he would be. Steve is the only one who can issue an order to the Hulk.

 

“Sorry,” Bruce says, eyes down and not focused on any of them. 

 

Bucky shrugs it off. “I get it pal. I do. I’ll make sure you get a peice of them when we catch up.”

 

“Please do.” It not often that you see Bruce Banner get vindictive outside side of the Hulk. Bucky gets it, though. Hurting a kid, especially as little and helpless as this one is, will bring out the monster in anyone. Bucky hasn’t missed the way Steve’s grip on her has changed since the news about the serum came out. It’s more protective, more shielding. Bucky would have done the same thing. 

 

“Okay, first things first things first.” Bruce tries to get them back on track. “We need to get her to a hospital. I’m pretty sure she’s only a few days old at most and should be in the nicu unit. There’s no telling what the serum is going to do to her. Do you know how much she took in?”

 

Bucky shook his head. “She was already hooked up when we found her and I pulled her out. There’s no telling what she’s got before we got here.”

 

“Maybe Tony knows someone close by who specializes in this kinda stuff. That would be helpful.”

 

Bucky nods and uses a hand on his shoulder to stir him toward the stairs. “You go talk to Tony and see where’s the closest place to take her. Steve will meet you up there in a minute.”

 

Bruce nods and disappears up the staircase. Bucky turns to Natasha and Steve, and starts barking orders. “Natasha, I’m gonna send a SHIELD tech team down here. When they get here, you can help them dismantling all this stuff. Make sure it goes straight to Tony or FitzSimmons. Steve, you take her to which ever hospital they end up picking and stay with her until we can figure out who her parents are. I’ll…”

 

“Stay right there with her.”

 

“Do what, Natasha?”

 

“You are not nearly as good at hiding your feelings as you think you are, katanok.” Natasha pats his cheek, and then pushes him off closer to Steve. “We’ve got things handled here. You can call Coulson from the hospital, go with them. You’re not going to be happy unless you do.”

 

“But,” Bucky looks back for Steve and maybe a little support, but all he gets is a careful shrug. Bucky would like to go with Steve, just to make sure that the baby was okay, but he’s the leader on the mission. He had to see it through.“I can’t. I’ll be up there later. It’s not like we can do anything anyway.”

 

Natasha rolls her eyes and pushes him toward the stairs. “We are big boys and girls, Bucky. Go. You can coordinate from there.”

 

“Would you drama queens come on.” Tony’s annoyed voice broke through on their coms. “I have an ambulance and a handful of doctors waiting at Berlin General.”

 

“I think we’re being summoned, baby.” Steve snickers, and pushes Bucky toward the door. “We’re coming, Tony. ETA two minutes.”

 

“I thought I was in charge.” Bucky muttered, a little shocked at how quickly things had gotten away from him. 

 

“I know, baby. It's the Avengers. They don’t know how to follow orders.” Steve sounds perfectly condescending as he delivers his report. 

 

“Yeah, well, look at the jackass that leads them most of the time.” Bucky snickers and slips one of his arms through the loop of Steve’s careful not to jostly the baby too much. “He can’t follow orders either.”

 

“Fuck you, Bucky.”

 

“Language, Steve. I know she’s not Misha, but that's still no reason not curse around the kid.”

 

“Uh, huh, and who taught our son to spit?”

 

Bucky blushed the appropriate color red. “That might have been me. Might have been Clint, too.”

 

Steve laughed and a pushed open the door that lead back out side. “Good luck with that one, Bucky. Good luck.”


	2. Jane Doe and Other Cruel Names

**Chapter Two**

**Jane Doe and Other Cruel Names**

 

The waiting room of the pediatric and delivery floor of the hospital was done up in tasteful shades of blue and red, with comfortable chairs and a flat screen tv on the wall showing a german dub of the current Avengers cartoon. As if Steve and Bucky didn’t already stick out like two red, white, blue and black thumbs. 

 

Waiting was the game though, so waiting they did. The baby had been taken from them as soon as they arrived at the hospital. Bucky had caught garbled snatches of “fluid on the lungs” and “body temperature dropping” before they’d disappeared behind locked doors. A helpful young nurse had pointed them here and told them to wait. That had been three hours before. Since then, Steve had put his uniform together, and Bucky had called Mac to fill him in on what they’d found. Mac was sending out FitzSimmons, Daisy, and May to help with the investigation. It was bad news if Hydra was trying to create supersoldiers again and it was going to have to be nipped in the bud. 

 

To his surprise, Mac hadn’t taken Bucky off the lead. He was still expected to lead the Avengers until the end of the mission. Bucky was shocked. Leading the team to do battle against Hydra was one thing, but this was tracking and having to work with local officials. This was a big mission, not just him and Nat taking out a little cell here and there. Bucky hadn’t known he was that trusted by anyone outside of the Avengers. It was a good thing to learn, and he was determined now to make sure this worked. For SHIELD, the Avengers, and the little girl through those doors fighting for her life. 

 

While Bucky spent the hours on the phone, Steve struck up a conversation with a three year old girl and an eight year old boy who were also in the waiting room with their grandparents waiting on their baby sister to be born. By the time Bucky wondered back in, the girl was sitting in Steve's shield while the boy was crawling over chairs. Steve himself was hiding, if it could be hiding when most of him wouldn't fit under a grouping of chairs. There was a great deal of giggling in the room. Steve grinned when he saw Bucky’s streaked combat boots and reached out for him while pleading, “Save me, Bucky! They’re gonna get me.”

 

The two kids looked up, eyes wide and apprehensive at the Winter Soldier’s entrance. Bucky just shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “You must deserve it, punk. Willst du etwas wissen, seine Schwachstelle?”

 

“DA!” both kids yelled loud enough that Steve’s groan couldn’t be heard over it.

 

“Tickle den Achseln. Er wird butter n ihren Handen.”

 

Of course this exchange ended with Bucky helping both kids pin Steve to the ground so they could tickle him mercilessly. Steve had tears pouring down his face, his peals of laughter bouncing off the walls. After their stress filled day, it was nice to be able to relax. Bucky wished their son was there, but he couldn’t complain about him being safe in New York either.

 

A nurse came in, and Bucky convinced the kids to get off Steve. The nurse spoke to their grandparents and then left again. 

 

“Thank you for this.” The grandmother tells him in heavily accented english. “You have no idea how much the two of them love you.”

 

“It was our pleasure, ma’am.” Steve replied, at the same time they’re getting tackle hugs from the kids. The room is a lot quieter when they’re gone, but a lot more boring too. They both stretch out on the floor, legs in front of them, right and left sides pressed together. Bucky’s head finds a perch on Steve’s shoulder about the same time Steve’s hands curls around his metal one. 

 

“They were cute.” Steve sighed, pushing blond hair out of his face. 

 

“They were. Showed you up.”

 

“Only because you let them.”

 

“Please, you become putty around kids.”

 

Steve nodded. “It’s true, I do.”

 

They whispered together for a little while, filling in their blanks as they worked through each other's day. Bucky was still worried about the baby they’d found, about the Avengers that became his responsibility, about Hydra who’s up to their old tricks. Steve is his rock, giving him something to cling as the winds of his life pick up. If there are kisses exchanged, well then, there’s nothing new there. 

 

“See,” Clint’s loud voice broke through their sheltered little bubble. “I told you we’d find them being adorably mushy.”

 

Steve rolled his eyes as Clint, Wanda, and Vision enter the room carrying plastic bags full of food. “You don’t have to be a jackass at all times, Clint.”

 

“Some jack ass. I brought you food and clothes.”

 

“We had to tell him not to get pizza.” Wanda chuckled fondly as she perched on the edge of a chair. “Apparently, the idea that not everyone eats pizza has not crossed his mind.”

 

“My dog eats pizza.” Clint corrected, tossing a duffle bag full of the cloths at Steve. “But no. We’re having having pork, spaetzle, and sauerkraut instead.”

 

“Hey, Bucky, you remember that spaetzle we had in ‘44?”

 

“The one that ended up in Dum Dum’s bowler hat? Pal, seventy years of brainwashing could not wash the hilarious image of that idiot's face from my mind.”

 

Steve leaned in, stole another kiss from Bucky’s lips, and then jumped to his feet. “I’m gonna go change. Save some for me.”

 

Bucky took an offered container and digs in while grilling the other three about what was going at the warehouse. He’s informed that everything is mostly moved out. Nat was still going through files and promised to call as soon as she had any information. Other than that, they were all stuck in the same waiting game. Hydra had to make a move now and they had to figure out if the baby was going to survive. Those were Bucky’s priorities in the moment. 

 

Steve comes back and started in on his own box of food. Bucky thinks it's a shame that the family wasn’t there any more. It was always a hoot to see other people watch Bucky and himself eat. They could put away more in a sitting than most people would eat in a day. Add in the fact that they had been fighting that day and meant they were famished. Like the sickening, long time couple they were, they would lean over and snag bites from the other person's box for no other reason than that they could. Clint rolled his eyes every time, even though he and Nat would do the same damn thing and he knew it. Wanda just smiled and curled closer to Vision. 

 

They’d finished eating before the door to the waiting room opened. There were three white coated doctors plus Tony and Bruce. Steve and Bucky jump effortlessly to their feet. Steve smiled and introduced everyone in German. Bucky had to bite back a moan. He always had a thing for Steve’s mouth shaping German words. 

 

To be fair he has a thing for Steve’s mouth at all times. 

 

“The child is stable for now.” a dark haired woman who introduced herself as a pediatrician says off the bat. Bucky breathed out a sigh of relief. “She’s in an incubator. Her lungs are not fully formed, but they’re developing much faster than we would have thought.”

 

“Probably the serum.” Tony offered. “Still no idea how much she got, but it's clearly fixing her lungs.”

 

“Is she going to be okay?” Steve asks, trepidation in his voice. 

 

The pediatrician shrugs. “The next twenty fours hours will be telling. “

 

“The bigger issue,” one of the other doctors cut in. “is how the serum is going to affect her going forward. I’ve never seen a case of someone so young being infected.”

 

“Infected?” Bucky questions with a snort. The guy was making it sound like some kind of disease. 

 

“Injected would have been a better word.” he apologized, the proper amount of fear in his eyes. “There’s no telling what could happen to her in a year, or even six months. As she grows she’ll change exponentially. Will the serum change with her, or will it keep her stunted where she's at.”

 

Steve stood up a little straighter, crosses his arms over his broad chest. Bucky smirking knowing exactly what that means. Steve is going on the warpath. “What can we do?”

 

“The first thing we need is family and a name.” The first doctor speaks up. “Family history could be a good marker for how things are progressing. Also, with how premature she is, I’m guessing that her mother is likely in some trouble as well. She needs to see a doctor to make sure there was no damage to her.”

 

“Hydra isn’t great at family records,” Bucky muttered to himself.

 

“We’ll call Nat and see if she found anything,” was Steve’s much more constructive suggestion. 

 

“As for the serum, I’d like to run some tests, but Germany, as you know, doesn’t have any copies of the serum.” Bucky couldn’t decide if the second doctor was being sarcastic or if he was really upset about that. “I was wondering if I could have some blood samples from the two of you?”

 

Two pairs of blue eyes turned on Tony who held up his hands. “I’ll keep the samples and they’ll be secure, I promise. No one is gonna steal that shit from your blood.”

 

With their friends promises, they both rolled up their sleeves and let the doctors stick needles into them. Bucky tries not to flinch at the sight of the thin needle. He and needles don’t get along on the best of days. Not after decades of not knowing what he was being injected with. Steve leaned into his side, using his body weight to hold him down to the earth and not get lost in his own head. Bucky smiled at him as a thank you. 

 

As soon as the dark red samples are collected, Tony and the other doctors disappear, leaving just the first one behind. “I’m just a normal pediatrician.” She chuckled when Clint says something about being left behind. “I’m here to make sure she’s okay in the present and stays that way. Do you have any idea what her name is?”

 

Bucky and Steve shake their heads and the doctor sighs. “That’s okay. Jane Doe is just a cruel name. Is there anything else that you need?”

 

“Can we see her?” Bucky asked, crossing his fingers behind his back. He’s not sure why but he needs to see her. She’s not his, but she’s got no one else and they did save her. They could do this much at least. 

 

“Sure. But you’ll need to gown up and only two at time.”

 

There's no question that Steve and Bucky are going together.

 

* * *

 

The NICU is a quiet, sterile room full of softly humming nurses and machines. All the babies here are tiny, but Jane Doe, as Bucky has forced himself to start thinking of her as, is easily the smallest. The clear cage she’s in dwarfs her. Bucky wants nothing else than to pick her up and hold her tightly to his chest where he can feel her breath, but he can’t. Steve, he can tell, is equally affected. It’s just wrong to see a baby crying to itself. 

 

“How long will she have to be in there?” Steve asks the nurse that’s accompanied them. 

 

“It’s hard to say. Could be a week. Could be longer. Hopefully she’ll be here till her family can be found, or the government will have to take custody of her.”

 

Bucky grimaces, thinking of the orphanage they’d found Misha in. There hadn’t been any heat, barely any toys. Grungy walls and little food. This little one wouldn’t survive something like that. True, Germany wasn’t Russia, but one bad experience will permanently scar a person. Bucky wants to rush and say that won’t happen, that she’ll have  a home by the time she’s out of here. But he can’t. For all he knows, Hydra killed her parents and she’s all alone in the world. 

 

“How long can we stay?”

 

“Not more than an hour. But you can come see her again soon.” The nurse paused for a moment, debating with herself before continuing. “It’s a good thing she has you. They have a better chance of surviving, you see, if they have someone cheering them on.”

 

“We can do that.” Steve slid his hands into the gloves in the box. Bucky’s heart constricted as he watched the girls little fingers wrap around Steve’s rubber clad fingers. 


End file.
